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GRAPE FRUIT 



CLAM BROTH IN CUPS 



BOILED CHICKEN HALIBUT, HOLLANDAISE 

CUCUMBERS POTATOES PARISIENNE 



BROILED GUINEA CHICKEN 
LETTUCE SALAD APPLE FRITTERS 



PI N EAPPLE ICE 



CLAMS IN BLANKET 
COFFEE 



Squantum, 

February 21, 1903 



CONCERNING THE SILVER PUNCH BOWL 
MADE BY PAUL REVERE IN 1768 AND 
USED AT A WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY 
DINNER GIVEN FEBRUARY 2TST, 1903 
AT SQUANTUM, RHODE ISLAND, BY MR. 
AND TviRS. MARSDEN J. PERRY 



This bowl, commemorative of events prior to the American Revolu- 
tion, was purchased of the associates, whose names are inscribed upon 
its surface, by William Mackay, one of their number, from whom, 
upon his decease in January, i8oi, it passed to William Mackay, his 
son, and upon the demise of the latter, in 1832, it became the 
property of William Mackay, his grandson in direct line, a resident of 
the city of New York. At his death in 1873 it passed into the hands 
of his brother, Robert C. Mackay, of Boston, and Robert C. Mackay, 
March iith, 1902, transferred it to Marian Lincoln Perry, of Provi- 
dence, R. I., a great, great-granddaughter of John Marston, one of 
the fifteen associates. 




, A 




3e-n\4™'"^ pranWl'in SttVtns. 

The 

Silver Punch Bowl 



MADE BY PAUL REVERE TO 
COMMEMORATE A VOTE OF 
THE HONORABLE HOUSE OF 
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE 
MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN 1768 






1768— 1903 






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/ 




The Silver Punch Bowl 




HE reputation of the great Boston 
mechanic, Paul Revere, does not depend 
solely upon any one of his many quali- 
fications. He was as ardent a patriot as 
he was an excellent mechanic, and as 
fearless a post-rider for the leaders of the Revolu- 
tion as he was a good soldier, bearing a commission 
as lieutenant from Governor William Shirley, under 
which commission he served His Majesty King George 
II. on an expedition against the French at Crown 
Point. He was a man of many resources; and, as his 
biographer aptly puts it, " he was an artificer of many 
trades, who was relied upon by the leading patriots for 
valuable services in the times that tried men's souls." 

It has been said that " although his bells were hang- 
ing in many steeples, his cannon had been heard 



around the world, his articles of silverware were 
sacredly cherished in many a family, a few of his cari- 
catures and historic engravings were still treasured in 
the hands of those who knew their value, yet Revere 
himself was comparatively unknown. Today his name 
is a household word, made so in a great measure by 
the muse of Longfellow." 

That famous midnight ride, set to the music of the 
poet's verse, has traveled many times around the 
world, ever adding in its course to the undying fame 
of the hero and the poet. 

But it is not to celebrate an incident in his patriotic 
career that your attention is drawn ; it is to an incident 
in his peaceful days, when older and possibly wiser 
heads were planning those acts against the British 
crown which Revere and those like him carried to a 
successful termination. 

It is well known how absolutely without price a 
piece of Revere silverware is today, how scarce it is, 
and how our antiquaries and collectors would give 
almost anything to possess even a spoon which came 
from the hands of the grand old silversmith. 

Here is shown, not a piece made for a household 
purpose, but a royal punch bowl commemorative of 
an historic event, which was the worst annoyance that 
King George III. received from the colonists before 
the Revolution. 



To fully understand why and for whom this bowl 
was made let us go back to the year 1765 and con- 
sult the historians of the times, who will readily tell us 
how hot the temper of the people had become by 
contact with the officers of the British crown, when 
King George III., led by his ministry, had saddled 
upon our ancestors the infamous Stamp Act, the out- 
cropping of the most villainous doctrine ever set forth 
to grind a free and enlightened people into the dust — 
taxation without representation. 

The Stamp Act levied a duty, or tax, of half a penny 
to twenty shillings on any piece of parchment or paper 
on which anything should be written or printed. The 
news of its passage reached Boston in April, 1765, 
and was received with alarm and indignation. Not 
only Massachusetts Bay, but every province, exhibited 
a spirit of resistance. In Virginia the resolutions of 
the House of Burgesses, drawn up by Patrick Henry, 
gave an impetus to public sentiment throughout the 
length and breadth of the land, and every province 
was in a blaze of excitement and resentment. 

On the 1 2th of August, the birthday of the Prince 
of Wales, the people of Boston, instead of honoring 
the event by public rejoicings, shouted, " Pitt and 
Liberty;" and the enthusiasm increased until, two 
days after, the stuffed figures of Andrew Oliver, Secre- 



tary of Massachusetts Bav, who had been appointed 
distributor of stamps, and of Lord Bute were seen 
dangling from Liberty Tree, the effigy of Bute being 
a boot with a devil peeping out with a " Stamp Act " 
in his hand. 

The subsequent proceedings originated with Revere's 
organization, the Sons of Liberty, who cut down these 
figures, and carried them in procession through the 
streets of the town, borne on a bier. The multitude 
moved in perfect order, and their route was lined with 
townspeople. They passed through the Town House, 
and under the council chamber, where the Governor 
and council were sitting, and the patriotic crowd 
shouted, " Liberty, property, and no stamps ! " into 
the ears of the listening dignitaries. The Sons of 
Liberty were preceded by some forty or fifty trades- 
men. From King (now State) Street they proceeded 
to Fort Hill, and there burnt the effigies in a huge 
bonfire. Governor Hutchinson fled to the castle for 
safety by means of a boat from Dorchester Point. 
Old Boston had rarely been so excited. It hardly 
needs mention that all business was suspended on that 
day. 

The officers of government could not appease the 
ire of the people, who in a large body proceeded to 
Kilby Street, where a building had been erected by 



Oliver, which was supposed to be the intended office 
for distributing the stamps, and instantly demoHshed 
it, bearing on their shoulders a portion of its ruins to 
Fort Hill, and there made a bonfire with it in full 
view of Oliver's house — all of which induced Mr. 
Oliver to declare that he would not attempt, directly 
or indirectly, to introduce any of the King's stamps 
into the market. 

A change in the British ministry soon repealed the 
obnoxious tax law ; and on receipt of the glad tidings. 
May 1 6, 1766, the town bells were rung. Liberty Tree 
was hung with lamps, and fireworks were displayed in 
every direction. In the evening a magnificent pyramid 
was erected on the Common, on which were two 
hundred and eighty lighted lamps; and subscriptions 
were raised for releasing the prisoners for debt, that 
all might partake in the general rejoicing of the 
Liberty Boys. 

During the quasi existence of the Stamp Act, on 
Monday, August 26, 1765, some boys lighted a bon- 
fire in front of the Town House on State Street, now 
known as the Old State House, and a great number of 
people gathered there, whose watchword appeared to 
be " Liberty and property." The assembly soon 
became a riotous mob, and at once beset a house 
tenanted by Mr. Paxton, surveyor of the port, who 



had made himself obnoxious in many ways to the 
people. The owner of the house stood in front of it, 
and to save his property, Paxton having left with his 
effects, invited the mob to drink a barrel of punch at 
the next tavern, which offer was gladly accepted. 
Thence the mob went to Mr, Storey's, deputy register 
of the admiralty, whose house was opposite the north 
corner of the Town House, and staved it to pieces, 
took out all the books and papers and records of the 
admiralty, carried them to Fort Hill, and there with 
them fed the liberty flame, or bonfire. They then 
visited the house of Mr. Hallowell, comptroller of the 
customs, broke into it, and destroyed or carried off 
gyerything of any value. 

The Lieutenant-Governor, Thomas Hutchinson, 
did not consider himself a party to the Stamp Act or 
custom house concerns, and gave himself, for a time, 
no uneasiness ; but while he was at supper he was 
apprised that the mob had him in special remembrance. 
He sent his children away, determined to see the event 
out ; but his eldest daughter returned for him and he 
prudently left with her. 

The mob entered his house, which stood fronting 
North Square, and destroyed or carried off everything, 
including a thousand pounds of specie and the family 
plate, with large and valuable collections of manuscripts 



and original papers (the efforts of a long life) relating 
to the policy and features of the country from its 
earliest settlement by Europeans, The loss of these 
papers cannot be estimated. 

Hutchinson was appointed governor of the province 
by King George III. in 1769. In T772 a number of 
his letters were obtained in London by Benjamin 
Franklin, who sent them to Boston, which disclosed 
his secret enmity to his country, in one of which he 
wrote: "There must be an abridgement of English 
liberties in colonial administration." The Legislature, 
on ascertaining his treachery, voted an impeachment; 
but Hutchinson, obtaining early information of what 
was transpiring, dissolved the Legislature and sailed 
for England June i, 1774. There he experienced the 
neglect and contempt of the lords, for whom he had 
sacrificed his reputation for honor and integrity, and, 
becoming an object of disgust with all parties, like 
Arnold, he lived some few years in a state of chaQ;rin 
and despondence, and died in June, 1780, at the age 
of sixty-nine years. 

When the Stamp Act went into operation, Novem- 
ber I, 1765, the day was ushered in with the tolling of 
bells and the firing of minute guns, while the flag of 
every vessel in port was at half-mast : thus the people 
showed their determination to nullify the Act. Again 



the multitude crowded around Liberty Tree, and hung 
upon its branches the effigies of Greenville and Lord 
Bute. In the afternoon they were cut down and 
carted, with great solemnity, first to where the General 
Assembly was in session, and thence to the gallows on 
the Neck, where they were again suspended, and 
finally torn in pieces, and given to the winds of 
heaven. Then the people quietly dispersed to their 
homes, at the request of their leaders, and the night 
was undisturbed by confusion or noise. 

The times were, indeed, tempestuous, even with the 
repeal of the hated Stamp Act, and persons began 
seriously to prepare themselves for the storm which 
evidently was brewing between the colonies and the 
mother country, the cloud of which, no larger than a 
man's hand, had already appeared upon the horizon. 

It was when the news arrived from England that 
the Stamp Act had become a law that the great 
Boston mechanic, Paul Revere, with a few other 
patriots, organized the famous Society of the Sons of 
Liberty, whose active work continued until American 
independence had been achieved. 

These Sons of Liberty were, for the most part, of 
the laboring classes and mechanics, with here and there 
a sprinkling of lawyers and merchants, under the 
direction of influential leaders. They were success- 



fully secret in all their meetings and concerted move- 
ments. They even issued warrants for the arrest of 
persons suspected of lack of patriotism. They 
arranged in secret caucus for the government of elec- 
tions and the programme for patriotic celebrations, 
and, in fact, were the mainspring of every public 
demonstration against the government. They were 
some three hundred in number, and they held their 
public meetings around the " Liberty Tree," at the 
junction of Newbury, Orange, and Essex Streets, or, 
as would be said today, Washington and Essex Streets. 
Thousands of people assembled under this historic 
tree when the Sons of Liberty met there ; but their 
secret meetings, according to John Adams, were held 
in the counting room of Chase & Speakman's distil- 
lery in Hanover Square. It has been more generally 
believed from Paul Revere's well known leadership, 
that the Sons met at the old Green Dragon Tavern in 
Union Street. 

It was not long before the Sons of Liberty had 
organizations in many towns in this province, and in 
towns in New York, Rhode Island, Georgia, Mary- 
land, and South Carolina. Probably no single repub- 
lican organization in the history of governments ever 
before wielded so much power for good as that of the 
Sons of Liberty, composed of laboring men and 
mechanics. 



The name " Sons of Liberty " originated from a 
similar term applied to the Bostonians by Colonel 
Isaac Barre in his speech in Parliament, when George 
Greenville brought forward his infamous scheme of 
taxation, which resulted in the Stamp Act, when Barre 
said " The people of the American colonies, I believe, 
are as truly loyal subjects as the King has, but a 
people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate 
them if they should ever be violated." 

After the delivery of the speech from which the 
foregoing is an extract the town solicited the portraits 
of Colonel Barre and General Henry Seymour Conway, 
Secretary of State from 1765 to 1768, able parliament- 
ary defenders of the colonies. The request was com- 
plied with, and the pictures were sent over in 1767; 
but they disappeared from Faneuil Hall after the 
evacuation of Boston by the British soldiery. 

It was General Conway who moved to bring in a 
bill to repeal the Stamp Act, after Pitt had made his 
celebrated speech, in which he said : " I rejoice that 
America has resisted. Three millions of people so 
dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to sub- 
mit to be slaves would have been fit to make slaves of 
the rest. ... In a good cause, the force of this coun- 
try can crush America to atoms. But, on the ground 
of this tax, when it is wished to prosecute an evident 



injustice, I am one who will lift my hands and my 
voice against it. In such a cause your success would 
be deplorable, and victory hazardous. America, if she 
fell, would fall like the strong man. She would 
embrace the pillars of state, and pull down the Consti- 
tution with her." 

The news of the repeal of the Stamp Act reached 
Boston in the spring of 1766, and the third day follow- 
ing, being May 19th, was set apart for general rejoicing. 
At one in the morning the bell on Dr. Byles' church 
(now the Hollis Street Theatre), being nearest to 
Liberty Tree, began to ring. This was answered by 
the bells of Christ Church at the North End, from 
which edifice Paul Revere, on April 18, 1775, hung 
out his lanterns of warning, and soon every town bell 
was ringing. 

Passing lightly over the year subsequent to the 
repeal of the Stamp Act, provincial history brings vis 
to the passage, by the Legislature of Massachusetts 
Bav, of what has been called the strongest state paper 
ever sent forth in the province — the celebrated circular 
letter written by that stern old patriot, Samuel Adams, 
to the other colonies, which passed the Legislature in 
February, 1768, by a nearly unanimous vote. 

From a condition of deep loyalty to the Crown, at 
the date of the repeal of the Stamp Act, the provincials. 



in 1768, became its determined enemies. Nothing 
they desired was done; their wishes and rights had 
been disregarded, and what they thought to be the 
worst evil to their trade and commerce had been 
imposed upon them — a hated revenue bill. It is 
stated by contemporaneous history, what may well be 
believed today, that the Revolution commenced with 
the aggressive acts of the Crown in 1768. But, not- 
withstanding the unfortunate condition of affairs, there 
was no overt act of violence on the part of the people; 
so well disciplined were they by their leaders that even 
the anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act passed 
away in quiet. Charles Townshend, the author of the 
Taxation Bill, had died, and was succeeded in office by 
Lord North, who would not concede a single favor to 
the colonists ; and it was at this juncture of affairs that 
Samuel Adams thought out and drafted his celebrated 
circular letter, which contained a reference to every 
question which had arisen between the colonists and 
the home government, such as the right of the Crown 
to tax the province without a representation in Parlia- 
ment, and the powers of the Crown ; and strong 
allusion was made to the great value there would be to 
England in the growing American trade if fostered and 
protected, and of the great loss that would be sustained 
if that trade were taxed to death to support a set of 



hungry office-holders. For seven days was the Legis- 
lature engaged in debating this circular letter, and it 
may be presumed that nothing important was left out. 

Bancroft, in his history, says of the writer of this 
wonderful production: "The ruling passion of Samuel 
Adams was the preservation of the distinctive charac- 
ter and institutions of New England. He thoroughly 
understood the tendency of the measures adopted by 
Parliament; approved of making the appeal to Heaven, 
since freedom could not otherwise be preserved; and 
valued the liberties of his country more than its tem- 
porary prosperity — more than his own life — more than 
the lives of all." 

Adams wrote to Lord Camden, who had been the 
friend of the colonies in the Stamp Act agitation : 
" The position that taxation and representation are 
inseparable, is founded on the immutable laws of 
nature. But the Americans had no representation in 
Parliament when they were taxed. Are they now then 
unfortunate in these instances, in having that separated 
which God and nature joined ? Such are the local 
circumstances of the colonies at a distance of a thousand 
leagues from the metropolis, and separated by a 
wide ocean, as will forever render a just and equal 
representation in the supreme Legislature utterly im- 
practicable." 



Copies of this document, which detailed the antag- 
onistic position of the province toward the Crown, in 
consequence of the laws levying duties upon imports 
and other aggressions, were sent to every province in 
the country, the legislatures of which sustained Massa- 
chusetts Bay in the position she had taken in issuing 
the circular letter. 

On the 2ist of June, 1768, Governor Bernard trans- 
mitted to the House a government letter from Lord 
Hillsborough, secretary of the provinces, a part of 
which reads as follows : " It is the King's pleasure that 
so soon as the General Court is again assembled at the 
time prescribed by the charter, you should require of 
the House of Representatives, in His Majesty's name, 
to rescind the resolution which gave birth to the 
circular letter from the speaker, and to declare their 
disapprobation of, and dissent to, that rash and hasty 
proceeding ; and if, notwithstanding the apprehensions 
which may justly be entertained of the ill consequences 
of a continuance of this factious spirit that seems to 
have influenced the resolutions of the Assembly at the 
conclusion of the last session, the new Assembly 
should refuse to comply with His Majesty's reasonable 
expectation, it is the King's pleasure that you should 
immediately dissolve them." 



On the 30th of June, 1768, the vote was taken to 
rescind the circular letter. Ninety-two voted not to 
rescind, and seventeen voted in favor. In obedience 
to the mandate of King George III., Governor 
Bernard prorogued the House on the day of their 
refusal to rescind, but not before they had appointed a 
committee to prepare a petition to the King, praying 
that His Majesty would be graciously pleased to 
remove His Excellency Francis Bernard, Esq., from 
the government of the province. 

But the Sons of Liberty in Boston determined to 
show their appreciation of the patriotic stand taken by 
the ninety-two members of the House of Representa- 
tives in their vote not to bend the knee to royalty ; so 
fifteen of them commissioned one of their number — 
their leader, and the most eminent among them, 
Paul Revere — to make for them a silver punch bowl 
to commemorate the action of that noble band. And 
this disobedience of the King's mandate, as embodied 
in the act of the ninety-two not to rescind that circular, 
is why Paul Revere made his famous punch bowl in 
1768 for fifteen Sons of Liberty. 

Round the rim of this bowl are the names of the 
subscribers in a round-robin as follows: John Marston, 
Ichabod Jones, John Homer, John White, William 
Bowes, William Mackay, Peter Boyer, Daniel Mai- 



colm, Benjamin Cobb, Benjamin Goodwin, Caleb 
Hopkins, John Welsh, Nathaniel Barber, Fortesque 
Vernon, Daniel Parker. 

The inscription on one side of the bowl is as 
follows: "To the Memory of the glorious ninety-two 
Members of the Hon^.' House of Representatives of 
the Massachusetts Bay, who, undaunted by the insolent 
Menaces of Villains in Power, from a strict Regard to 
Conscience and the Liberties of their Constituents, on 
the 30th of June, 1768, voted not to rescind." 

On the opposite side of the bowl is a liberty cap, 
and under it these words within a wreath : " No. 45. 
Wilkes and Liberty," the figures referring to that 
number of the North Britain, the paper conducted by 
John Wilkes, in which he espoused the rights of the 
colonies. On the other side of the wreath are two 
flags, one containing the words " Magna Charta," the 
other " Bill of Rights," and the engraving of a torn 
letter, marked " General Warrants," which gave the 
power to search houses, and under which Wilkes had 
suffered arrest. 

This punch bowl belongs to a descendant of William 
Mackay, one of the subscribers, who was in that day 
a merchant. He bought the right of ownership of 
the other Sons of Liberty ; and the valuable relic is 
still, and will always continue to be, in the possession 



of the family. The name of Revere is stamped on 
the under side of the bowl. 

The names of William Maclcay, gentleman, Fish 
Street, and five others appear in the first Boston Direc- 
tory of 1789 ; viz., Benjamin Cobb, distiller, Long 
Wharf; John Homer, stonecutter. Fish Street; John 
Welsh, ironmonger. Union Street ; John White, Scar- 
let's Wharf; Peter Boyer, town treasurer, Sudbury 
Street. The other nine had accomplished their life's 
journey. 

John Marston, whose name is first mentioned upon 
the list, was a merchant of considerable means. He 
abandoned his business at the time the Society of the 
Sons of Liberty was organized, and turned his private 
residence into an inn called " The Bunch of Grapes 
Tavern," which was on the corner of State and Kilby 
Streets, formerly Mackerel Lane. Here the Sons of 
Liberty and their sympathizers were afforded an oppor- 
tunity to meet and lay the plans which eventually 
resulted in the freedom of the Colonies. He was 
Boston born, and in 1 740 received a commission from 
Governor Belcher of Massachusetts Bay as captain, 
and served at the battle and capture of Louisburg. 
During the Revolution his tavern, the Bunch of 
Grapes, was the resort of the hottest-headed patriots. 
On the occupation of Boston by the British, John 



Marston was arrested and parolled. He never took 
active service in the Revolution, but his son, the 
grandfather of the present John Marston of Phila- 
delphia, did, and served faithfully to the close of the war. 

Another of the subscribers, Daniel Malcolm, has a 
history. He was of Irish birth, and intensely Ameri- 
can, and extremely bitter against the Crown. He was 
an importer of wines, and had an invoice subject to 
duty arrive here in a schooner. The vessel was brought 
to anchor about five miles below the castle. Daniel 
Malcolm, with twenty or more sturdy fellows in barges, 
went down at night, unloaded the cargo, and returned 
to the city with sixty pipes of wine free of duty. He 
died in 1769, aged about forty-four years. The 
British soldiers, in revenge for his act of insubordina- 
tion, made a target of his gravestone, and there it 
stands in Copp's Hill burial ground with the marks of 
the British bullets upon it. 

In 1874 this rare old punch bowl, sole relic of an 
event which must have set King George's teeth on 
edge, was taken to the rooms of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society by the late Rev. Dr. George E. 
Ellis, and the transactions on that memorable and 
interesting occasion are recorded in the archives of the 
Society. It was then returned to the Mackay family, 
in whose possession it has remained until latelv. 



Let us fill the bowl and propose prosperity to 
the descendants of Paul Revere, the maker, William 
Mackay, and John Marston, and the other thirteen 
subscribers whose names are on the bowl, as well as 
drink to the memory of the ninety-two members of 
the Honorable House of Representatives of the 
Legislature of Massachusetts Bay, who, undaunted by 
the menaces of villains in power, voted not to rescind 
the famous circular letter, so carefully drawn by that 
intense patriot, Samuel Adams, who, more than any 
other man of his day, threw fear into the ranks of the 
British ministry and consternation into the heart of 
his so-called "Gracious Majesty King George IIL" 




LiVERMORE i KNIGHT CO., PROVIDENCE 



